GEMITOR - Multimodal Georeferencing of 3D VHR Optical and X-band SAR Imagery

Context and objectives

In both visible and radar imagery, very high resolution opens news opportunities, some of which are still largely unresolved, in terms of shape recognition, and of feature localization, identification, and characterization within scenes. The high revisit frequency of the Pléiades and Cosmo-Skymed constellations, combined with the expected high resolution, also opens new opportunities for change detection and surveillance.

We propose (1) to investigate the limitations of current SAR interferometric techniques once they are applied to X-band VHR imagery; (2) to develop new algorithms whenever the existing algorithms are no longer applicable, and to test these new algorithms on simulated Cosmo-Skymed data made available under the ORFEO Preparatory Program; to develop the resources required in terms of (3) georeferencing of visible and SAR images in a common reference frame, (4) coregistration, and (5) fusion of these multimodal data at the pixel level; (6) to make fusion products available to the other partners; and, finally, (7) to develop 3D visualization tools (virtual reality).